U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came for a lightning 24-hour visit and showed us first hand how she handles awesome power as the symbol of her country’s foreign policy — with grace, charm, and a firm grasp of her president’s priorities and policies. No grandstanding for her and that only made her even more attractive.

Needless to note, we were all smittened, entranced by her poise and stature, sending even the school children in Marikina (where she visited a book fair and asked how the flood victims were coping) and their mentors swooning like they had been visited by a Hollywood star!

Ahhh, well…what might have been had America had her as president instead of her charismatic fellow Democrat, we will have to just imagine. She has been here with husband Bill when he was president, admires the late Tita Cory, had a Filipina medic in the White House and several very good Filipino friends.

The usual horde of  militants run in protest, splattered on the street in front of the US Embassy  and mouthed invectives against the “imperialists” Americans and the VFA but whatever for? By this time, Secretary Clinton must be used to anti-American protests staged in many of the countries she has visited by the same-minded ideological groups. Yes, indeed, the VFA made possible the immediate civilian response of the US soldiers to our disasters Ondoy and Pepeng.

Incidentally, she stayed at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza during her overnight visit after a welcome dinner at the Palace and an awarding of a Sikatuna medal for her. Congratulations to Foreign Affairs Secretary Bert Romulo. He was so “galing” at the joint press briefing at the Goldenberg mansion. Cordial, correct, without being too gushy nor pushy.

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Earlier in the week, we were quite charmed by our lone guest at our Bulong Pulungan forum last Tuesday — People’s Republic of China Ambassador Liu Jianchao. The young Oxford graduate diplomat is on his first ambassadorial assignment and after eight months in the Philippines, he is feeling quite at home.

His wife is in Beijing busy with her own career and his twenty-year-old son is studying in Macau. He is thinking of joining his father here for the holiday season and going around the countryside which brought us to the subject of how attractive our tourist eco sites are but how still lacking they are of infrastructure and accommodations.

Amb. Jianchao answered all the questions thrown at him in perfect King’s English as befitting a proper Oxford man. He was candid, knowledgeable and engaging. He was a young foreign affairs officer, we found out, when the late President Cory visited China to trace her Chinese roots.

He was all of 24 years old and Cory was the first head of state he ever saw. He had not even seen their premiere then, Deng Xiao Ping, when President Cory visited. The young officer who spoke impeccable English was assigned to take care of Cory’s media, of which I was then a member, covering for my paper the Manila Bulletin. That was in l988, months before I joined her administration.

Since the media went days in advance to the small town in Fujian province, he and I must have met, we reminisced at the forum. He offered to bring out pictures of that visit to see if we were in them!

He talked proudly of China’s giant strides and its progress in what is now an enviable position — as one of the economies that has survived the global recession. He elaborated on China’s advancement too in areas where before it was in the bottom ranks of the other countries — investment opportunities, even human rights appreciation in the context of their form of government and fight against corruption and global warming.

The keys to all these, the ambassador stressed, were the “implementation of government initiatives and projects” and “punishing immediately those caught doing wrong.” We discussed the controversial ZTE project and the North Railway, which he said were non-issues in China-RP relations but were good projects.

He observed that the Philippines needed a good working railway project but is sadly very much delayed because of bureaucratic and political obstacles. The RP- China relations remain and continue to grow strong and the ambassador aims to help it along even more.

China still implements the “one-child” policy but as the ambassador pointed out, there were extreme cases that couples were allowed a second child. In his case, no, he can’t have the luxury of a second child. He can get booted out of service. 

Of course the wonders of China are not lost on those who have recently visited the country. Even for us who visited China six years ago, go over how far the republic has gone. And who can forget the spectacular opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics staged in Beijing recently? Watch out world for the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010!